On July 27, 2023, Los Angeles Education Partnership (LAEP) and 21st Century California School Leadership Academy (21CSLA) hosted the Learn. Lead. Liberate. conference in Riverside, California.
The event brought together about 250 educational leaders from across Southern California to learn ways to strengthen liberatory practices and remove barriers in order to foster communities that honor BIPOC students, parents, and staff.
The day kicked off with an amazing keynote presentation by Zaretta Hammond. Ms. Hammond discussed cognitive redlining, cognitive justice, and cognitive capacity building, giving leaders specific strategies to support students as they build cognitive capacity. “To lead toward liberatory education,” she said, “we must help create the conditions so teachers become the ‘personal trainer’ of students’ cognitive development.”
“I’m so grateful for the opportunity to have attended the Learn. Lead. Liberate. conference put on by 21CSLA and LAEP. The keynote speaker, Zaretta Hammond, was incredibly insightful, along with the other sessions that I attended. What a great start to the ‘23-‘24 school year.”
– Jessica Reyes, Orange County
Then, participants attended breakout sessions on a variety of topics, such as:
- Cultural and linguistic responsiveness
- Land, language, harm, and healing for Indigenous children
- The role of principals in systems change
- Equitable TK classrooms
- Resilience, collective care, and healing
- Leading in allyship for the LGBTQIA+ community
- School safety
- Community schools
“This conference has given me a lot of ideas and connections to people. I’m thinking about things I want to work out and how I’m going to bring it back to my classroom and to my district.”
– Erin Charnow, San Diego County
A huge highlight of the day was a panel of current and recently graduated high school students who identify as Black and/or Indigenous. “Our future Black and Indigenous students need better,” student panelist Ania said. “It starts with us, and it starts with [schools] listening to us.”
The day concluded with a Q&A with Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade, who discussed racism and white supremacy today and reminded leaders that learning only happens when students are well.
Throughout the day, a wellness lounge offered attendees a space to take care of their well-being – a key tenet of LAEP’s work and the cornerstone of our CORE (Cultivating Organizational Resilience & Empowerment) program, as educators and leaders must be well in order to create an environment in which their students and staff are well.
“As our children change, we need to change with them; we can’t just stay the same way. If we want our children to be engaged, if we want them to learn the content and be able to apply it to their life, that is so much more important for them. Literacy means freedom, but are they really being taught the way they need to be to be free once they go into the world?”
– Dr. Shelley C-Bradford, San Bernardino County
21st Century California School Leadership Academy (21CSLA) is a statewide network of collaboration and shared resilience-building, providing high-quality, equity-centered professional learning for educational leaders at no cost to them.
Los Angeles Education Partnership (LAEP) is the 21CSLA Regional Academy provider for Riverside, San Bernardino, Imperial, Orange, and San Diego Counties. LAEP’s CORE program is the base for 21CSLA professional learning, communities of practice, and one-to-one coaching in the region. CORE is designed to jumpstart and support a sustainable culture of staff well-being, which is critical to a healthy and equitable school climate. We focus on dismantling inequitable systems so true well-being can exist for educators and students, both individually and as a collective.